ANDREW NAPOLITANO: ...the White House lawyers, "You can't issue a subpoena until there's a vote." Well, the Republicans changed the rules when John Boehner was Speaker of the House, allowing each individual committee to issue subpoenas, without a House-wide vote. So those subpoenas are valid, and people who resist them, ignore them, put them in a drawer, do so at their peril. If you get a subpoena that asks for something that you don't think you should have to produce, you have to challenge the subpoena, you can't ignore it.
Look up info on letter/subpoenas
Actual House rules
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44247.pdf
Regardless of what might instigate an inquiry into whether impeachment is warranted, there are normally three formal stages of congressional action. First, an impeachment inquiry is authorized, and this is most often accomplished through the adoption of a simple resolution (H.Res.___)
directing the Judiciary Committee to investigate an official.
Schiff is the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Most House and Senate committees have specifically included in their rules one or more provisions on committees’ and subcommittees’ power to authorize subpoenas by majority vote. Most House committees have also delegated to their chair the power to authorize subpoenas.
Many of these rules delegating authority also require the chair to consult or notify the committee’s ranking minority member.
Which they have not done.
Thank you for your research. It' pretty plain why they aren't taking this farce to a judge for a ruling on whether the WH is compelled by these "subpoenas".
And a federal judge, hearing arguments Tuesday about whether the House Judiciary Committee should get grand jury materials from the special counsel report from Robert S. Mueller III as part of an impeachment inquiry, questioned when she could know such an inquiry had begun if there wasn’t a floor vote.
Democrats face consequences of skipping floor impeachment vote
Here's the thing though... in Nixon and Clinton there were independent special prosecutors, who did all the investigations in to wrong doings, IN SECRET, as all investigations... grand jury testimonies done behind closed doors without Clinton or Nixon lawyer interference or false claims of due process rights being squashed...
Dirty Bob Mueller and his band of Witch Hunters did that and came up empty.
This is not an Open Bi-Partisan process designed to build the confidence of the American People and it won't. You guys have gone from one hysterical set of unfounded allegations to the next, since election night 2016. Pelosi realizes that the whistleblower Ukraine thing is dead, so now she is trying to switch back to "All Roads Lead TO Putin!" What you are doing may appeal to the unbalanced crazies, but at some level it has to be dawning on you that you are losing the sensible center.
At some point they will have to present the case that:
i) This is the Bribery, Treason, or High Crime(s) that he is accused of,
ii) And this is the unimpeachable courtroom quality evidence that he is guilt of these crime(s).
iii) This evidence proves his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.
You guys haven't settled on i) much less ii) and iii) and once it's election year you will not be able to answer the question of "
We vote in a matter of months, what the hell are you trying to impeach him for?" The obvious answer being that you do not trust the electorate, and realizing this, they will reflect your distrust back onto this fear-based process.
If you think the folks running this have some sort of deep clever strategy coordinating this ungodly mess, I think you have a rude awakening coming.
...There are no legal due process rights in any investigative stage of inquiries, not in criminal and not in impeachment investigations...
Are you completely unfamiliar with the 4th amendment?
... The House committees in this impeachment inquiry...
There is no HOUSE impeachment inquiry.
... the judge in your article, will likely rule with the Dems on this, imo.
If they do they will be reversed on appeal. It is the HOUSE that has impeachment power, not Pelosi and a handful of henchmen that head committees.
But, if they disagree, by all means litigate it and get a court decision. This will be a good lesson on exactly what separation of powers means.
Sometimes it seems like the Left has no ideal what it means to be a Free American. We rule ourselves. We are the Sovereigns, not the government. We lend a portion of our authority to those we elect to REPRESENT us and this transaction is carefully defined in our Constitution. The Left seems to be under the delusion that our government is an elected autocracy where a small group, if they win an election can do whatever the hell comes into their minds.
When the House votes, a majority of representatives, that are the closest to the voter, agree to a course of action. A House district is roughly the size of a county, and over half of these districts, casting their votes as representatives OF US, set a course of action, in this case impeachment. Think of that on a colored map. If the ayes are blue, and nos are red, you would see a national map with a majority of various sized blue groupings opting for an impeachment inquiry scattered the length and width, and from top to bottom, that has moral authority. Pelosi, Schiff, and Nadler camped out on postage stamp sized islands command no such power, nor exercise any such authority, and they know it. That's why they are running for a courtroom to get a ruling.
Now say they were running an open above board bipartisan process, they would also be working on a bipartisan basis to build 2/3rds support in the Senate, knowing that without a high level of certainty of removal that there was no way they would put the nation through this when we are nearly in a Presidential Election season. Impeachment is not designed to replace the Electorate, but, should something come up that must be dealt with prior to the election, then we have this process.
Frankly this process that you folks have adopted looks unfocused, disorganized, frantic, bitterly partisan and driven by the knowledge that Trump will win the upcoming election. Having no candidate that can share a stage with him, this is your Hail Mary pass to try to circumvent the upcoming election after you failed to overturn the last election. The further you push this, the more undeniable this will become and the Electorate's response is going to be disgust, because you clearly are communicating fear, loathing and disgust for The US Electorate.
But, you will not be turned from your crazed self-destructive obsessions, so by all means, do what you have to do.
